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tv   The Daily Rundown  MSNBC  November 22, 2013 6:00am-7:01am PST

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"the daily rundown." have the best day. >> a half century of history shaped by a single bullet in dallas. a look back at the and death of president kennedy and the events that were happening at this very hour 50 years ago. also this morning, a major move changes the u.s. senate as we know it. or does it? reaction on how a relatively old rule got rejected by a decidedly new senate. plus happy hacklers for hillary clinton and a shiny new number out of the sunshine state for her against jeb bush and chris christie. a quick check in in a busy, busy week. it's friday, november 22nd, 2013. this is "the daily rundown." you say that date any time it's november 22nd, you think of one day. you begin with 50 read in this somber day.
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president kennedy was assassinate and his death shook the political power structure and changed the nation. memorials started early this morning at kennedy's gravesite in arlington national cemetery. thousands are expected to visit throughout this day. u.s. attorney general eric holder visited early this morning. president obama ordered flags lowered at all government buildings to honor kennedy's memory. at this hour 50 years ago, president kennedy was in ft. worth on the third leg of a politically tricky texas trick. he was greeted like a rock star as he met the crowd outside the hotel texas that morning. >> there no faint hearts in ft. worth. >> what did you think of him? >> i thought he was very distinguished. >> i think he is just so distinguished and so intelligent and i'm so happy i got to see him. >> what are do you think of the president? >>. >> i think he's a wonderful man.
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>> after that the president and vice president johnson headed to a chamber of commerce breakfast. the first lady joined him. from there they headed to dallas. the kennedys were behind schedule when they landed at 11:44, but they took time to greet another unexpected crowd at the airport. the rain had just stopped and the secret service decided to take the bubble top off the limo. >> the president's car is turning on to elm street and it will be a minute before he arrives. it appears something has happened in the motorcade. >> the president was hit in the head. an unconfirmed report the president was hit in the head. >> he was coming down the street and my 5-year-old boy and myself were on the grass on palmer street. i asked joe to wave to him and joe waved and i waved and --
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>> that's all right, sir. >> as he was waving back, the shot rang out and he slumped down in the seat and his wife reached up towards him and as he was slumping down, a second shot went off and knocked him down in the seat. >> white house press secretary malcolm has just announced that president kennedy died at approximately 1:00 central standard time, about 35 minutes ago. he had been shot by an unknown assaila assailant. >> what's striking is how drastically the nation's mood has shifted in the half century since then. the sudden and stunning end to president kennedy's life shattered an optimism that has been unparalleled since in
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modern politics. the purchase center republished poll numbers from that year. look the this. 82% of americans were confident in the government and believed u.s. power would increase despite the close call in the cuban missile crisis the year before and the debacle with the pay of pigs, they supported sending aid and 68% was satisfied with their income and president kennedy enjoyed a 70% approval rating. my next guest said he was impacted by that optimism and inspired to join the peace core. chris matthews has not one, but two documentaries tonight on president kennedy that will be on msnbc. so chris, obviously you have lived with the kennedy legacy for years as an author and historian and as a democrat and
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activist and everything. this day just -- what does it mean to you? >> this sounds strange, chuck, but i never have been able to put it all together. the life of kennedy and on "hardball" when we showed him kidding around in the make up room or bed make up, that picture you are looking at, putting this picture with him getting killed, it's hard to put it together still. when i wrote the book on kennedy, i made a point of blinding myself to dallas. what happened to him at the end so i could write about it when he was alive. i wanted to write something wonderful about what he did. i keep thinking about jeff greenfield's book. what if he lived? he did live. that day i was at holy ross and i was checking my mail and i just had lunch and somebody said he was shot and i went to history class and the teacher, the professor let us out. we used to get three cuts.
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he said you won't get a cut if you go. we watched cronkite the rest of the afternoon. i haven't been able to put it together soon. we never got over it. he looked at me and said i think that's true of a lot of people. >> i want to talk about your documentaries. the first clip is le tisha bald ridge talking about in the white house. >> the whole white house staff couldn't believe what happened. they walked around on tiptoe, no noise in the hall. the halls were always noisy and full of laughter and teasing and started greeting each other. not a sound. >> i interviewed a bunch of women off the record when i did my book years ago and kennedy and nixon. it never comes across the news conference is how much fun everybody had. he would bop around saying hello to everybody. he was relaxed about being president and he was
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charismatic. there was so much joy people had. that's what we lot of. the sense of -- it's joy and fun having a president like this. rooting for the moon launch. i pointed this out. jackie wanted two things. the eternal name and his initials put on the next rocket. he wanted to beat the soviets to the moon. he was a competitor to win the cold war safely. >> let me play on the clip, this was more things about kennedy we didn't always know in public. >> what the country learned only later was how well this suave exterior hid his secret life. the risky affairs that if revealed could have ruined everything. his addison's disease that almost killed him in 1947 and again in a 1954 back operation that required him to take steroids and a reliance on
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energy-boosting amphetamines that may have compromised his judgment. >> he was a shakespearean character. everything about his health was a lie. he looked like a god, but as bobby would say, a mosquito bites my brother, the mosquito dies. >> how unhealthy was he in the white house? >> you can see things. people will cover up. he said he never used crutches. we have seen him with crutches and the cherry picker and the forklift, putting him up on air force one. he couldn't walk. he has to walk diagonally. he couldn't walk directly down. there he comes. see the diagonal way he walks? he had the back brace that kept him from slumping in the seat. if you pay attention the way he walks. maybe not painfully all the time, but most of the time. this guy had a great life, but he said he wished he had more
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good days. that guy was covering up intense pain in his back. the careful way he walks. no one seemed to pay attention to that for some reason at the time. >> that's one of the reasons you didn't want to know. you didn't want to believe those things. chris, there really is on one hand as somebody who is of the next generation, particularly for the baby boom generation. when you look at this, it really is a line between optimism and realism. i don't want to say it's pessimism, but maybe the country was headed down to a rough period between 64 and frankly 80. maybe it was inevitable whether he lived or died, but you can't help but see this was an important marker. >> i think you guys in your generation, there is the 60s like 1961 to 1970. the calendar years.
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there is the 60s that gani believe with the death of kennedy. that brought on the drugs and rebelliousness. when he was alive it was frank sinatra and very conventional. it's like mad men if you want to get a taste of it. conventional and guys in wing tipped shoes and having martinis and chasing girls. it was different. after that it was the beatles and a baroque period and it was not happy, but an effort to be happy. >> it is. we can spend a whole hour on this, but i will try to put other stuff in. the good news we get to spend three hours with ow this tonight. good stuff. you can watch both specials. first at 7:00. it will be jfk, the day that changed america. 8:00, watch the kennedy brothers. a "hardball" documentary. at 9:00, don't miss the reverend
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al sharpton. 50 years of guns beginning with that day in dallas. and beginning at 2:00 today, msnbc.com will be live streaming all the coverage of the assassination that day as it happened. you can watch chris matthews every week at 7:00 here on msnbc. up next, the big story of the day of course happened in the u.s. senate yesterday. majority rules. the senate and the house and big changes in the way the senate works to invoke the nuclear option as senators like to call it. republicans accused democrats of trying to change it, change the subject from health care. >> our senator from oregon, for example, which has not enrolled a single person, a single person for the obama care exchange. i probably want to talk about something else too. >> connell was referencing our next guest. we will get reaction on this
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move from that senator from oregon. from republican senator roy blunt. first a look ahead at the politics planner. we know there is a lot of jfk memories today. that will be going on. a few other non-john f. kennedy things. talking to peace core volunteers and ted cruz is going to meet donald trump. we are watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. the american dream is of a better future, a confident retirement. those dreams, there's just no way we're going to let them die. ♪
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a
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. >> breaking news in the last few minutes. nba news learned that a hospital spokesman said that virginia
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state senator was discharged from the uva medical center earlier this morning. good news. his recovery is going well enough that he gets to leave the hospital and recover from there, but still deal with the tragic death and suicide of his own son. back now with more of first read. it used to be a no vote was enough. so is the use of the filibuster. suddenly voting against a nominee has been insufficient and punishable by activists in the republican party. now a fight ten years in the making has ended with the biggist change in the senate in more than a generation. by party line vote, 52-48, senate democrats changed the body's rules so it only takes a simple majority, votes rather than 60. an exception was made for
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supreme court justses. three senators including karl levin broke with democrats to vote against the change. in an unscheduled visit to the white house briefing room, president obama argued that the move was necessary to break an unprecedented level of gridlock. >> the vote today is an indication that senators believe as i believe that enough is enough. what's at stake is not my ability to fulfill my constitutional duty. what's at stake is the ability of any president to fulfill his or her constitutional duty. >> the senate fight has been mostly over the president's picks for federal judgeships as republicans fear. these appointments will tip the balance in the courts away from the gop, particularly in the d.c. circuit. while democrats have a 55-45 majority, the 45 republicans can hold up and stop any
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presidential appointment they choose. things have escalated in the past few weeks after republicans successfully blocked three nominees to the d.c. circuit. this is the country's second highest court. they hear a lot of challenges to regulations made by the federal government. pretty important to a lot of conservatives. all had majority support and none had 60 votes. >> four of president bush's six were confirmed. four out of five of my nominees to the court have been obstru obstruct obstructed. >> he has seen more of his nominees subject to a filibuster. 81. that's more than the previous seven presidents combined. you can see it really started with the clinton years and moved to bush and we saw now with obama. while president obama claimed a lot of high ground yesterday,
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then senator obama had a different view when republicans were proposing the same rule change because the democratic obstruction. >> what they don't expect is for one party, be it republican or democrat to change the rules in the middle of the game so that they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet. if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse. >> of course the president is not the only one whose views have changed as the party controlling the white house has changed. >> invoking certain obstructionist tactics would upset the unwritten rules, filibustering nominees with majority support fall this is that category.
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this was nothing more than a power grab. in order to advance the obama administration's agenda, they just broke the senate rules. >> there you go. a lot of hypocrisy. republicans are doing their best to make the rules change, part of a larger narrative. it was like a memo went out to tie the rules change to the health care fight. >> sounds to me like harry reid is trying to change the subject. if i were taking all the incoming fire that he is taking over obama care, i would try to change the subject too. >> i would support this law. i would be looking to change the subject. >> another raw exercise of power to permit the majority to do everything they want whenever it wants to do it. it is obama care 2. >> we thought he said if you like the senate rules, you can
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keep them. >> it's hard to imagine it could get worse. the bitter relationship between harry reid and mitch mcconnell is likely to get more contentio contentious. they are threatening to return the favor the next time they are in charge with the senate and the white house. >> my friends on the other side of the aisle, you will may regret this a lot sooner than you think. >> this is wisdom that eliminating could be a relief for members of the gop's compromise caucus, especially the folks with reelection coming up? we will have more on this later in the show. it's an interesting way to think about it. ever since he arrived nearly five years ago, jeff murkily fought to change the body's rules. after a losing battle for years, he won. karl levin who served in the senate since the 70s warms democrats they are blind to
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their moves unintended consequences. >> down the road, we don't know how far, we never know that in a democracy. down the road, the hard one protections and benefits for our people's health and welfare will be lot of. >> the senator joins me now. senator, i know that you fought very hard for this. this is something you wanted to see for a while. this is on presidential appointments. you top the go further than that. karl levin had a thoughtful floor speech in which he thought there were other ways that this could have been done. this could have been accomplished to curtail some of the obstruction filibustering that the republicans were doing. wonders why democrats didn't choose that path. >> i would remind karl that the three times we tried to return to the norms and traditions that were up and down on nominations
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with rare exception. the filibustering of an executive nomination and the nomination was rare until recent years. there was a good reason for that. that's because of the vision of coequal branches of government. you can't have a minority systematically attack the functioning of the judicial branch. there were three times we tried to return this through a gentlemen's agreement, if you will. this did not happen. it happened in 2005. the first big effort and the minority said we will only filibuster under rare exceptions. that was a deal made and as soon as president obama came into office it was broken. in january, another major attempt to reach this agreement and mitch mcconnell said this was word for word. the republicans will return to the norms and traditions of the senate regarding nominations. within two weeks we had the
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first ever filibuster of a defense secretary nominee. just in july was the 50 major effort and republicans in the minority pledged they would not filibuster nominations with rare exception and immediately turned around and did another filibuster. >> you have taken away your ability. it's possible that republicans could be in charge of the senate and republican president. for instance, senate democrats blocked a gentlemen by the name of john bolton. eventually president bush got him there via a recess appointment. the way you change the rules means you cannot stop if you don't like john bolton becoming ambassador to the united nations, you have now said i'm not going to be able to filibuster that. you have taken away your own ability to do that. are you going to regret this?
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>> that ability disappeared in 2005. at that point they said if you don't quit filibustering nominations of president bush, we will change the rules. they got the rule change without the rule change. without a formal action. you try to envision a future president perry or future president cruz and majority leader mitch mcconnell. do you think for one second they won't repeat that? >> they would have changed the rules? you felt huh to change the rules now because they would do it if you didn't? >> no. we had to change the rules now because the perpetual war on the executive and judicial branch are out of sirchg with the constitutional role of advice and consent. as you noted, there were 80 plus, 81 nominations. the total in u.s. history is
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168. virtually half of the nominations filibustered have been under these years with president obama. just five years. if we look at district court nominees, there is only 23 in history. 20 of those filibusters occurred in the last five years. a complete attack on the ability of president obama to fill positions on the court. >> i want to ask you about what's going on in oregon. what happened to the oregon health exchange? we know about the website problems. can you explain what happened? >> oracle. >> okay. >> oracle is contracted to write the exchange and they promised they would be fully delivered and do more than the exchange in the country and it's in dysfunction. i would turn to paper applications. we have a room that the governor's team has hired a group of folks to process the applications. medicaid is working well. we have reduced the uninsured rate by more than 10% through
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the expansion of the medicaid. >> senator, i will leave it there. no doubt you are one of the young guns here that made this move happen. thanks for coming on. >> you're welcome. >> joining me now is senator blunt, vice chair from the republican conference. good morning to you, sir. >> good morning, chuck. >> i want to ask, you heard the senator there and the statistics, numbers don't lie. there was absolutely an escalation in the number of presidential appointees of president obama's appointees held up to filibuster standards than what president bush experience and president clinton experienced. this escalation had gotten out of hand. >> i don't think so. numbers don't lie, but they can be misleading. >> how are they misleading? that's a lie. >> i think we rejected two judges and approved 212. >> it's not about rejection.
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this is about something to the filibuster. >> no, it's really not, chuck. it's not about that. it's about whether a person gets 60 or 51 votes. it's like the so-called filibuster on secretary hagel. i didn't vote for him, but he is a stronger secretary of defense because republicans did have to vote for him. this is not snomething that dras things on. a standard that the democrats set. the truth is why you got an audience that is riveted on this. i think most people won't pay much attention to this and the average guy would have turned off long ago. they decided to change the rules. i suspect that changes the senate in fundamental ways forever. the senate in our system was the example to the world that there was a way and a democracy to protect rights. that is lot of on the nominations and could be lot of if the senator gets his way on
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legislation as well. when one side decides they are going to do what they want to do all by themselves, there is a usual long-term price to pay. >> there is always that. >> you have to defend that all by yourself. the democrats on the president's health care plan decided they were not going to do what was necessary to get one republican in the house or the senate to be for that. that made the discussion from that moment on different than it would have been if they worked to get one single republican or 30. for years, i was either the chief depp dee or the whip in the house. there were only two bills that they didn't vote for them. we tried to look for ways that let this be somebody had to have skin in the game and it mattered when those things became law.
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>> let me ask you, if the senate is like the house, that is not a compliment, what say you? >> the senate has been too much like the house and on legislative matters, it has become the house with the one-person rules committee. there is a committee that every bill goes to that decides how that bill will look on the floor. in the senate only one can bring the bill to the floor, senator reid. now only one person decides what's going to happen on the floor with that bill. another thing that happened this week, we walked away from the defense authorizing bill, a bill that for 50 years had virtually any amendment that any senator wanted to make. we can't do that anymore because the leaders say i don't want to vote on this and i don't want my members to vote on this.
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i'm the one person rules committee and that's not the way it should work. that's with them being respected. >> the power of the special interest groups. do you think a no vote was not treated like that anymore? you could vote no and if you didn't participate, you were punished by a special interest group? did that make things out of whack too? >> i'm not sure i fully understand what the example would be. >> if you vote to not continue a filibuster and you vote no on something anyway, that was not treated very l. a special interest group still punished you even though you voted against it, you allowed it to have a vote. >> i think there was some of that. i think there has been a lot of difference towards the idea that these nominees should get a vote.
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usually an amendment that was not allowed. these were rights that the centers had and you often use them in ways that tried to let the legislative process worked fairly. that's why they were not confirmed. >> we got it all here. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ you get your coffee here.
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>> coming up, a rare meeting from officials and a victim of a drone attack. it's an important story this week, but you are not going to miss it. stick around and watch "the daily rundown" after the break. . it's not bad for canned soup, right? pfft! [ laughs ] you nearly had us there. canned soup. [ male announcer ] they just might think it's homemade. try campbell's homestyle soup.
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>> one of the stories often overseas. five taliban commanders with the number two man had been killed in a drone strike in pakistan. it comes on the same day he raised the drone issue in his meeting with president obama and asked that the attack stopped. drone strikes had fallen off after he promised there would be the oversight. we saw that the fallout and it is little comfort to those who witnessed, attacks. one yemeni man came to washington to give officials and lawmakers a firsthand account. besides speaking with the white house, he spoke with the correspondent, michael isikoff about the attack and the meeting. >> it was buzzing over our heads and then for a moment we saw flashlights and then huge
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explosions coming up from the sky. five people were killed. among them, my brother-in-law and walied, my nephew. it is a scene that i cannot describe. it is a shocking moment i haven't felt before. >> you can read more about the story on the investigative page. what was fascinating was the decision to meet with him. >> exactly. this may have been the first time we know of that people from the white house actually meeting with the family of a drone victim. >> we acknowledge that the drone attacks even happened let alone that mistakes are made. >> we have come a long way. from denying any civilian casualties as john brandon did to president obama's speech last may in which he said there have been casualties and we are haunted by them to this day. that was pretty striking
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language. in this case this drone strike was highlighted. that imam of the brother-in-law denounced al qaeda in his friday sermon and confronted by three al qaeda guys. confronted by three al qaeda guys. they were targeting those guys and kills the anti-al qaeda mam in the process. >> he talked to the white house about what he thought the negative impact were beyond the obvious. the reaction to the youth in yemen. explain that. >> his village. he said there was enormous anger and two youths, 14 and 16 leave the village to join up with al qaeda. he said the young people wanted revenge over this strike. that's probably the most
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significant take away from this. that works against us. >> there was a lot more on this story and this interview that you did. good stuff. you can find a lot more on our investigation page. good stuff. thank you, sir. we have the friday gaggle to wrap up what has been a very busy week. first the white house soup of the day, raging cajun gumbo. a friday staple. we'll be right back.
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a story that matters, but it got overlooked. almost eight weeks since healthcare.gov launched, they are on target to have most of it fixed on saturday. thanksgiving saturday. they have been lowering expectations at the white house. republicans are hoping the trouble helps them. a bunch of polling out indicates that may be happening. there battered republicans who are looking to governors like chris christie who took over and the rebranding effort took a hit after trey ra dell said he was taking a leave of absence amid cocaine charges. all that set the stage for the decision go nuclear, something they insist they will regret. for all that to happen, let's bring in the friday gaggle. americans for tax reform and former spokesman. from american bridge 21st century now. i will start with you with what happened in the senate. this has been an escalation i
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would say that started in the clicht on years and democrats escalated and republicans took it to another level. is this going to have major repercussions? >> i understand why they did it. you have 82 nominations since obama has been president. they stalled. only 160 like in all of history. 82 of them under this president. >> the numbers are the numbers. it was clear. you worked for one of the special interest groups. i say this because i feel as if the special interest groups and you can see it on the left, you hold senators to another standard. if voting no is not enough. you have to -- if you really want to get rid of a nominee, have to hold them up. do you think special interest groups escalated this? >> our special interest are taxpayers. we are arguing for smaller government and we want senator
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who is stand by and not to raise taxes. what happened yesterday is here harry reid is the only person who can't make it work. we had years and years of majority leaders able to work through the rules. why is harry reid the person to get something done without breaking the rules? >> what's interesting is there were these moderate gangs who used to solve the problems. they didn't want to participate. i think they are fed up. >> i think the american people are fed up. what they are saying is this could go either way. they will say there is more partisanship or finally someone is trying to do something to break it or they don't care. i almost raise the question of well, doesn't every institution to change to some degree? why is the senate any different? that could be the next step in the conversation. >> i want to go to 2016.
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we have seen talk about governors, governors. they know their washington brand is a mess and they want the governors to be the answer. how do you think they have done this week some you are trying to stop it. you don't want the republicans to rebrand themselves outside of washington. do you think they are on to something. >> everything since this republican autopsy and where they are supposed to focus on, lgbt and women and minorities. they drop the ball time and time again. i'm not sure chris christie is the medicine that ails them. >> i get if he wins he will have a better resume than chris christie and the guy more likely to unite the party. is he pushing the envelope too much and could say say slow down on the ambition? you are running for reelection. >> he has a tough case because of the recalls. he was able to go through this again even though wisconsin voters were so fatigued.
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it's like the 15th vote they were taking in three years. he was able to get like 11% of obama voters. part was they were anti-recall. if you are looking looking at ts saying people are thinking he's going to push the envelope, those are generally people who aren't going to cross the aisle just for a recall vote, they probably won't turn out. so if they still turnpike out and voted for the governor, that shows that he has a lot of appeal. >> but do you think wisconsin voters, i think that's the thing. when you're running in 2014 if you look like you're not going stick around very long, does that hurt you in the re-election. >> i always lived in a blue wisconsin so i'm still trying to wrap my head around a red wisconsin. >> liz, we had hillary clinton this week. i thought it was interesting. we saw a couple of test cases of polls. colorado, and i think there's something going on in colorado that democrats have some problems there because even her numbers were not good. she has shown strooechength in
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democratic dip. florida is showing she's ahead of jeb bush. we're seeing that she's still -- her brand is holding up even as democrats get drug down other than in a place like colorado. >> okay, sure. but it's still so far out that the only thing these polls are measuring is name recognition. so, you know, i don't put a lot of stock in these early polls in swing states and i think that there's a lot of time between now and the end -- >> oh, don't give that answer. that's the copout answer. that's the copout answer. all republicans are going to get measured as to how well they perform against hillary, are they not? fair or unfair? >> but we have a great batch. i think all of our governors are going to put up a good fight. >> do you think marco rubio should be worried about re-election more than the presidency? >> i think he's doing an okay job so hard. i think he's in a good position going into 2016. >> i've got to stop it here. we tried to get through a lot of stuff. it's been a busy week. you guys were short and punchy,
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i was not. we're right back with my punchy friday takeaway. t what thedon'tt i'm using my citi thankyou card at the coffee shop, so i get 2 times the points. and those points add up fast. so, sure, make me the grunt. 'cause i'll be using those points to help me get to a beach in miami. and allllllll the big shots will be stuck here at the cube farm. the citi thankyou preferred card. now earn 2x the points on dining out and entertainment, with no annual fee.to apply, go to citi.com/thankyoucards we've been bringing people together. today, we'd like people to come together on something that concerns all of us. obesity. and as the nation's leading beverage company, we can play an important role. that includes continually providing more options. giving people easy ways to help make informed choices. and offering portion controlled versions of our most popular drinks. it also means working with our industry to voluntarily change what's offered in schools.
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time now for my final takeaway of the week. while everyone is concerned about the nuclear option, i'd argue this may be much ado about nothing and here's why. first of all, as we said earlier, it is hard to imagine that congress is going to get more polarized. the body is already fundamentally changed. let me show you the u.s. senate here. just 39 current senators served in the chamber back in 2005, the first time this nuclear option thing was considered. so look at this. so you have over 60% of the senate is new. they don't remember the old ways of the senate. and in many way, it's the new ways that they're copying so the idea of some sort of going back to the old ways or protecting the old rights and all that stuff, hog wash to many of these guys. back in 2005 the partisan gang of 14 negotiated the deal to avoid the nuclear option. just five of the gang of 14 is still serving in the senate, which may be why nothing happened to stop it this time. the ones left frankly have been punished for voting to end
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filibusters, conservatives, liberals not happy with either one of these groups of people. maybe liberals unhappy with mark pryor or mary landrieu. and you know what, they're all going to be happy perhaps that they don't have the filibuster anymore because eliminating the filibuster for presidential appointments might be a relief to these guys in the gop's compromise caucus. so if you're lindsey graham or lamar alexander, aren't you glad you don't have to feel responsible cast votes to end filibusters looking like you're voting for obama nominees when you're going to vote against them when they're there for the up or down vote? it might help you in republican primaries. something to think about there. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." we'll see you right back here on monday. msnbc will have all-day coverage of the 50th anniversary of president kennedy's assassination. one of the most important historical markers in american history coming up next on msnbc,
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good morning. i'm chris jansing. today the nation unites to remember a president taken from us too soon. the 50-year anniversary of the assassination of president john f. kennedy, today not just renewing the debate over how and why he was killed but also reminding us with his youthful optimism and soaring rhetoric why his accepsenseless killing us shattered. flags across the country are at half staff. president obama gave the word to honor in his words an extraordinary public servant. members of the kennedy family left flowers at the arlington national cemetery this morning. this afternoon 5,000 people will gather to pause for a moment of silence, a moment that marked every american al